Brown Water…. Again…

[Kodychynn]

We have an Intex 15x48 vinyl above ground pool. We filled it with well water <— first problem. We learned we have alot of iron in our water. A few attempts at correcting ourselves with no luck so we headed to Leslie’s. They gave a list to work with beginning with metal out, cellulose and CU Later. Success! Clear blue water! Moved on to next steps water stayed clear/blue thru all this. Also maintaining the right numbers Finally got to add salt and shock. Back to brown water again? my guess is there was still trace amounts of metal in the water? Do I return to Metal out again? can I add stain remover at the same time?

 

[AK-]

The brown water is because your high FC (after shock) oxidized the iron. The good news is you can remove it mechanically rather then chemically (that doesn’t really remove it).

If you’ve got iron in your fill water, use Polyfill to remove it

EDIT: Found out this method only works if your iron is oxidized already, meaning it’s got a dull or bright green tint to the water, or a nasty brown tint. If you know you have iron in your fill water, but it isn’t oxidized yet, bring your pool to shock level and it’ll turn the telltale green...

www.troublefreepool.com

Getting advice from Pool Store is going to cost you a lot and is unlikely to resolve the problem.

 

[Kodychynn]

Curious… once I do this, my guess is I would need to do this every time we have to refill? we did move from using the well to using the water from the house which goes thru a filtering system. Evidently even if we aren’t seeing it, it’s still there? Or, at some point will this neutralize?

 

[AK-]

You can only remove iron from water mechanically (by filtration/absorption). It is unlikely that you will be able to remove all the iron, but you might be able to remove enough so it doesn’t become such a big problem.

Evaporation/refill will likely increase the levels of iron over time, so you will have to deal with this from times to times. Use liquid chlorine and do your best to stay within the target FC for your CYA level. That should avoid the need to ever “shock “ your pool reducing the likelihood of getting brown water again.

 

[AK-]

Regarding your filtration system. Most whole house filters/softeners can remove iron from water to wild different levels of efficacy. So that can help preventing issues in the long term.

I don’t have issues with metals in my public water, but I do like overkill solutions, so I use either 0.5 or 1 micron sediment filters on my whole house filter. The finer the filter the better it will remove fine stuff such as iron, the faster it will clog needing replacement and the higher will be the pressure drop (they are usually more expensive too).

 

[Texas Splash]